Marsa Umm Gerifat South

The dive

Marsa Umm Gerifat is the Arabic name of Coraya Bay, the sheltered marsa about fifteen minutes north of Marsa Alam airport that three hotels and the Coraya Divers base share. The bay has a fringing reef down each side, and this pin is the southern one. It matters which side you are on: walk out along the wooden jetty and the ladder puts you directly on the south reef, while the north reef, and the glassfish window that divers go looking for, are reached by zodiac or by the base's shuttle boat.

The south reef is hard coral, with fire coral common enough that taucher.net calls it out, running along the shoulder of the bay before the reef gives way to sand slopes and a series of plateaus. The bottom keeps going: 40 m is the quoted maximum, though ordinary dives here are worked in the top 20 m and the snorkelling drop-off is at about 9 m. There is a training platform on the sand near the jetty, which is what the site is mostly used for, and the bay's northeast opening keeps it out of the swell and current that runs on the open coast, so the base dives it every day of the year.

The fish are the resident kind rather than the passing kind: sohal and brown surgeonfish, Rueppell's wrasse, sailfin tang, diagonal and threadfin butterflyfish, Picasso triggerfish, broomtail wrasse, goatfish, and maxima clams set into the coral. Blue-spotted ribbontail rays sit on the sand, and turtles, crocodilefish, octopus, scorpionfish, morays and barracuda are regularly reported; eagle rays, manta and dolphins show up occasionally in the bay. One published trip report notes that both sides of the bay were relatively low in fish compared to other Egyptian sites, which is worth knowing before you expect a wall of anthias. The reef is roped off in the shallows to keep swimmers off it, though the same report says the ropes are not always respected.

• Jetty ladder puts you straight onto the south reef, no boat needed
• Training platform on the sand a few fin kicks from the entry
• Hard coral shoulder giving way to sand plateaus
• Blue-spotted ribbontail rays, crocodilefish, octopus and turtles
• Maxima clams and the full Red Sea reef-fish set on the coral

Conditions

A calm, shallow, sandy-floored bay. Taucher.net gives visibility as 5 to 15 m depending on weather, well below what the offshore reefs do, and one trip report measured 27 C in late November with the water still cloudy in places after heavy rain. Current is usually negligible. A typical dive is a walk down the jetty, a ladder entry, out along the south reef and back over the sand, with the training platform on the way in.

On current: Coraya Bay opens to the northeast and is described by the resident dive base as protected from the strong currents and high waves of the open sea, which is why it can be dived year round; a published trip report found effectively no current on the day. Do not read the 40 m maximum as the dive: that is the sand slope running out of the bay, and the reef itself is worked in the top 20 m with a drop-off at about 9 m. Visibility is the variable, quoted at 5 to 15 m depending on weather, which is lower than the open-sea Red Sea numbers because this is a sheltered sandy bay.